“Ralph, quit it,” Hannah says through a laugh and flicks water off her fingertips to scare the cat away, but it doesn’t move. It just glares at her, unamused. Hannah laughs again and looks at me in disbelief. “I think she’s testing you.”

“Oh really? How am I doing on that test so far?”

She smirks. “You’re basically becoming Ralph’s bitch.”

I bark out a laugh and splash water at her. “Well, I guess that’s fitting because Ralph’s mama has me wrapped around her finger.”

Hannah’s gaze softens as she stares into my eyes, and she cups my jaw in both of her hands to pull me in for another kiss. I wrap my arms around her, feeling every inch of my body react to her closeness and the feelings that are raging inside me.

And when Ralph bats the face wash into the water again, I barely notice.

28. Hannah

Chapter 28

Hannah

I stretch languidly in my bed, blinking my eyes open as morning light floods the room. It takes me a few seconds to piece together where I am as consciousness slowly blooms in my brain, but when my head rolls on the pillow, I remember I’m at home. Declan and I fell asleep side by side, curled up together in an exhausted, sated haze, but I’m alone in bed now.

A soft laugh escapes me, because I can’t remember the last time I slept this deeply. I didn’t wake up once throughout the night, not even when Declan got up. Maybe that’s not a surprise after the full-body workout that he gave me last night, but as I start to stretch, extending my arms above my head, I wince as the delicious soreness pulses between my legs.

It’s the sweetest kind of ache. My muscles are tender, my body still humming from the leftover endorphins, and my limbs feel a bit like jelly. This is the perfect kind of lazy morning wake-up that I wish I could have every day.

But when I roll in the opposite direction and see the clock on my bedside table, my heart leaps into my throat and I sit bolt upright.

“Shit!” I hiss, scrambling for my phone like it’s going to show me a different time or something.

It doesn’t, so I toss my phone back on the nightstand and scramble out of bed to throw on some clothes, whatever I can find fastest.

I don’t have time to really care how put together I look, but I do at least stop in the bathroom to pull my disheveled hair into a ponytail and check myself in the mirror. Normally, I’d spend way more time in here making sure I look the part of a lawyer-to-be, but the jeans and ponytail look are just going to have to do.

But where’s Declan? Did he leave already?